Hi guys, I wanted to ask you, what would you recommend on using to fight pythium (besides keeping everything top-notch clean) when the plants are very young (1-2-3 weeks old)? I've read that hydrogen peroxide isn't an option for seedlings because it can damage their young and fragile roots. I've also read of people using garlic, cinnamon or chamomile tea.
if plant are that young I would just start over. Disinfect & clean everything with peroxide solution. Get more air into your res. to prevent it from growing in the future.
Cool reservoir temps, (60'to 65 deg) Lotsa air bubbles And do a search for Heisenbergs beneficial microbial tea...it REALLY works
All did was buy a bottle of H202 (10$) at my local hydroponic store, this is my first Hydro grow mind you, i had pythium starting in my Res cause i was having trouble keeping it below 75 degrees for the first week.....after i started to chill my Res and put my H202 in there, my little gal is just taking off now, cant always listen to hear say information that says "This willl definately do this" cause for some people certain things work, and for others certain things dont. When starting out its a learning game, not so much "im the greatest farmer ever" you learn....you make mistakes and you fix them. Good luck man, my cure was h202 and cleaning my Res every 3 days for the first 3 weeks now of this grow. next grow ill grab some Hydroguard and see if it lives up to its name.
The best thing to do is avoid pythium, not fight it. H2O2 is a treatment for killing pythium. it doesn't fix the problem and it doesn't make weak oxygen starved roots perform anything like healthy roots that are getting all the oxygen they need.
I know your post is direct towards me, but my setup is spot on, i just live in a place where it gets 100+ in the summer, and no matter what you do unless you want a 400$ electric bill from turning your ac down to 65 degrees to keep the humidity and heat out of your house entirely. Pretty sure i wont be running Hydro after this run because of where i live. Were not all blessed to live somewhere that has 60-80 degrees all year round. Or even winter time for that fact. I also talked about Hydroguard in my post, saying im going to start out with it if i do another run. Prevention is always key, and as for "Oxygen starved roots" ive got more then enough air going into my bucket, i actually have way over what is necessary. So thanks man..........and to bad i can kinda debunk what you said, my plant is doing amazing now and its growing like it should. No one thing is spot on for everyone so im not sure what you were trying to accomplish with your post here.
Hmm... You know my post was directed at you? You don't always know what you think you know. My post was directed at the OP, who specifically asked about H2O2. Not trying to accomplish anything. Just responding to a post with an opinion based on over 20 years of growing with hydroponics, DWC and E&F. I changed to E&F so that high reservoir temps in the summer time aren't a problem. Reservoir temps as high as the mid 80's without any air pumps/air stones, and without any H2O2.
I have been running RDWC for the past five years and had a couple of minor brushes with Pythium and one fairly bad one. I have run chiller$ and tried H2O2 every three days. That helped but was not the solution. I found that substantially increasing the size of my air pump and number of airstones was the key in my garden. Also, I have been following Snypes RDWC guide on one of the other boards. He advocates using SMALL amounts of chlorine. I know that this runs contrary to common opinion but it works for him. I decided to try it 18 months ago. I now have bright happy roots and my chillers are now in storage..... Just my $.02